What is “Linting”?

Question

PHPLint, JSLint, and I recently came across "you can lint your JS code on the fly" while reading something about some IDE.

So, what is this linting that everyone knows but me?

Answer 1

Linting is the process of running a program that will analyse code for potential errors.

See lint on wikipedia:

lint was the name originally given to a particular program that flagged some suspicious and non-portable constructs (likely to be bugs) in C language source code. The term is now applied generically to tools that flag suspicious usage in software written in any computer language.

Answer 2

Lint was the name of a program that would go through your C code and identify problems before you compiled, linked, and ran it. It was a static checker, much like FindBugs today for Java.

Like Google, "lint" became a verb that meant static checking your source code.

Answer 3

Linting is the process of checking the source code for Programmatic as well as Stylistic errors. This is most helpful in identifying some common and uncommon mistakes that are made during coding.

A Lint or a Linter is a program that supports linting (verifying code quality). They are available for most languages like JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Python, etc..

Some of the useful linters are JSLint, CSSLint, JSHint, Pylint

Answer 4

Apart from what others have mentioned, I would like to add that, Linting will run through your source code to find

 -  formatting discrepancy 
 -  non-adherence to coding standards and conventions 
 -  pinpointing possible logical errors in your program

Running a Lint program over your source code, helps to ensure that source code is legible, readable, less polluted and easier to maintain.

Answer 5

lint is a tool that is used to mark the source code with some suspicious and non-structural (may cause bug). It is a static code analysis tool in C at the beginning.Now it became the generic term used to describe the software analysis tool that mark the suspicious code.

Answer 6

Interpreted languages like Python and JavaScript benefit greatly from linting, as these languages don’t have a compiling phase to display errors before execution.

Linters are also useful for code formatting and/or adhering to language specific best practices.

Lately I have been using ESLint for JS/React and will occasionally use it with an airbnb-config file.